Even for some Strikeforce veterans, UFC jitters very real

Jorge Masvidal knew something was off, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“Backstage, I’m usually very energetic, working up a storm sweating, but I just couldn’t get in my groove,” Masvidal told reporters after his unanimous decision victory over Tim Means at UFC on FOX 7.

As he spoke, blood from two long cuts in his scalp bubbled to the surface and mingled with the drying sweat on his face. The deep crimson gashes practically cried out for stitches, but the cuts were a good thing, in a way, he said. According to Masvidal, they “fired [him] up” and helped snap him out of his pre-fight funk, at least enough to get the decision in a performance that he rated as a “five or a six” on a 10-point scale.

“I don’t know if I was overwhelmed subconsciously, but I was kind of out of it,” Masvidal explained. The look on his face suggested that he still couldn’t understand how this had happened. As if, like so many other MMA veterans, he assumed that the “UFC jitters” were something that only happened to other people.

On paper, guys like Masvidal would seem to be immune to that sudden affliction of nerves. He came into his undercard bout with 30 pro fights to his credit, not to mention a couple years’ worth of Strikeforce experience. He’d headlined a Strikeforce card on Showtime and knocked out UFC veterans in other organizations, so why should his UFC debut be such a big deal? And yet, there he was, like so many others before him, feeling just a little bit off on the night he could least afford it.

“It happens, man,” UFC President Dana White said following Saturday night’s event at HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif. “I don’t care where you’ve been, where you fought, who you fought – when you come in here your first time, you get nervous.”

Even Daniel Cormier, the Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix winner and former U.S. Olympic wrestling team captain, had to find out the hard way that White knew what he was talking about.

“I always kind of laughed at Dana when he said there’s jitters and there’s nerves that come along with this,” Cormier said at the post-fight news conference, following his unanimous decision victory over Frank Mir. “I was like, ‘My career’s prepared me for this. There’s no chance.’ … But man, I was nervous today.”

The effect of those three little letters on seasoned athletes was especially interesting on this card, where so many Strikeforce veterans made the transition to the UFC in the friendliest possible environment. For years, the HP Pavilion was Strikeforce’s home base. The venue was so familiar to Strikeforce fighters that Gilbert Melendez joked earlier in the week about the valuable experience he’d gained while competing there over the years.

“I knew to bring my sweater in here,” he told reporters at a pre-fight media event in the building that also serves as the home of the National Hockey League’s San Jose Sharks. “I knew it was going to be freezing.”

But just because they knew what it was like to fight under the same roof, that doesn’t necessarily mean they knew what it would feel like inside the octagon on network television. According to White, even Strikeforce transfers like Jordan Mein, who made his UFC debut in Montreal this past month, weren’t immune to the effects of the pressure.

“I guarantee you, the Mein kid, he was nervous,” White said. “He had the jitters. Big fight for him on national television against Matt Brown. When he hurt him with that body shot, you don’t jump on top of him and try to guillotine him. You f—ing make him stand up and go back to that body.”

Not all former Strikeforce employees were awed by the moment. Olympic silver medalist Yoel Romero said he felt “calm and ready” for his UFC debut, and his impressive first-round KO of Clifford Starks proved as much. Romero cited his Olympic experience and comfortability in front of large crowds for his success, and said that since he regarded fighting in the UFC as “equivalent to fighting at the Olympic level,” he had prepared as such.

Lightweight Josh Thomson, who returned to the UFC for the first time since 2004, also seemed perfectly comfortable on the big stage, despite spending most of the last decade fighting in Strikeforce. In size and scope, the UFC he came back to seems very different than the one he left following a loss to Yves Edwards at UFC 49.

But returning now with a violent TKO win over Nate Diaz? That, Thomson said, “was just like coming home.” As with his fellow Strikeforce imports, now the focus can shift to finding a way to stick around.

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